With the contest approaching its climax, Mr Sarkozy effectively accused his left wing rivals of orchestrating what he described as a “despicable forgery”.
Amid mutual smear claims, Mr Sarkozy and François Hollande held giant rallies in Paris and Toulouse on Sunday ahead of a crunch two-and-a-half-hour televised debate on Wednesday. More than 20 million French are expected to tune in for the lone duel ahead of the May 6 runoff that Mr Hollande is polled to win by up to 10 percentage points.
On Saturday, the investigative news website Mediapart [E] published what it said was a copy of a Libyan regime document proving that Mr Sarkozy and Col Gaddafi – onetime allies – had an illegal financial arrangement to help propel Mr Sarkozy to power in 2007.
Written in Arabic and signed by Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi’s intelligence chief in 2006, it refers to an “agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50 million euros.”
However, the memo’s supposed recipient – Bashir Saleh, Gaddafi’s former chief of staff and head of his sovereign wealth fund – yesterday denied receiving such a document. A lawyer for Mr Saleh, currently in exile in France, said he expressed his “grave reservations” over its authenticity. » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Sunday, April 29, 2012
